Ghanaian Talent manager and CEO of SPEECH PRODUCTION Enoch Agyepong who doubles as one of the most vibrant and outspoken pundits on Radio and Tv has issued a strong statement about most industry players who call themselves “GATEKEEPERS “ to drop their EGOISTIC behavior and work as an industry for the betterment of Ghana entertainment industry.
He wrote; “ This industry has suffered for years because of the way it was set up along the way.
It came to a stage where Artist were slaving and begging Presenters for Airplay which made the Presenters feel superior and instead of using that superiority in a positive manner it was used to sabotaged any Artist who refused to kowtow to their acclaimed superiority.
Imagine over 40 Artist waiting for just one Presenter called Dr Duncan at Adom Fm every Saturday just to give about 10 of them airplay for the rest to come the following weekend obviously Duncan will become a demigod but fortunately he used that power to help a lot of Artist of which Sarkodie is one of them, reason why a lot are finding it hard to accept his latest interview because these same local Presenters made him .
Fact is in showbiz the one on stage is CREATED to be superior so when these Artist found their feet and needed to break out of that initial self imposed slavery it became a power Struggle since the Presenter didn’t understand why he who played your song to make you popular must succumb to the Artist and this have been the bane of industry.
In other well structured industry the Presenter only see the Artist when he or she is coming for an interview so there is no such direct or personal relationship but in our part of the world where labels were hard to find we had the ones on stage go begging and this upside down structure created the mess when the fame started coming and putting them in the right positions.
Until independent labels like slip, Agicoat etc came in to play that managerial roles some of these Artist were even washing the cars of Presenters for airplay so you should understand our situation today.
You watch a radio or TV interview and it’s either the Presenter wants to embarrass or look down on the Artist and the Artist also wants to disrespect the Presenter and it has taken a while to break that jinx to create a good relationship.
It’s actually better now.
Fact is everyone has a role to play in the Career of a Talent and even though the Talent is Created to look superior in the eyes of the world it is expected of him to remain humble in order to be kept on that pedestal.
Now without the labels/managers, Presenters, journalists, Bloggers, Graphic designers, booking agents, event Organisers etc the Artist is NOBODY and the more we keep having that tug of war between ourselves the more these Artist will struggle to breakthrough cause a house that’s divided among itself can never stand.
Since the Artist cannot make it on his own he begins to fail when he becomes greedy and wants to work alone and keep all the profit just because he feels he is superior and that’s another face the industry went through when they were trying to gain their freedom.
Fact is in the past when business was good everyone was making money including free flow of illegal Payola but when the Artist started feeling everything was all about them everyone just backed of and they began to fall till the Internet somehow came to survive them a LITTLE which is actually NOT Sustainable in any serious industry.
Now the TRUTH is that everyone in the ecosystem has a very important role to play to make brands successful and they all have to be paid for Job done and we believe it’s time for everyone including the Artist and Presenters to put their egos aside and see the industry first in order to achieve Greatness for monies to flow back into the system to be shared among all players.
If you’ve been in a band before you’ll realise that the lead singer is useless without the keyboardist or the drummer or the guitarist and in the same way you cannot make good music with a keyboard with only the white keys or the black keys you need both and we all have to come to that realisation and work for the good of industry.
If the Artists sees that we’re all praising him and giving him fans it does not mean he should jump on our necks but he should realise that it’s the nature of the Job else we’ll move and allow him fall freely.
In the same way when the Presenter is playing for the artist to rise he shouldn’t feel like he’s a demigod but a contributor to the ecosystem so is the blogger and the rest of the players including the band packer.
Let’s build that cordial relationship and work like the broom that’s together to clean all the rubbish in the system in order to restore our industry back to where it belonged in the days of the Osibisas the Ampadus the Kojos, Lumbas & Amakyes the Rockstones etc yes the Greatness that made people come here to learn from us.
Enough of the Power Struggle, it’s Time to Work together.”
#VhimMoveMent
